


She's Got A Friend

by justfandomwritings



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Fluff, Family Loss, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), POV Third Person, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25168243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justfandomwritings/pseuds/justfandomwritings
Summary: Happy endings are a matter of perspective. At some point in every story, there will always be some glorious, shining moment of hope, love, redemption, success. No good story is complete without it.And if you end the story then, if you end it on a high, you can almost forget that anything came after that.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	She's Got A Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainscanadian on tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=captainscanadian+on+tumblr).



The condolences came in the mail only a few days after the official notification arrived on her doorstep from the mouth of some general or another.

She didn’t bother to remember the man’s name, and why should she? He wouldn’t remember her brother’s, let alone hers.

It was hard to stem the tide of her anger in the face of a man so visibly faking his sympathy for her pain. It was harder still to unleash her anger on him; she pitied him almost as much as he faked pitying her. It was just before sunset, and she was his sixteenth stop of the day, with a further 5 to go before he got off that night.

She imagined that, at some point, months ago, he had cared. He had sympathized and cried with grieving widows and orphaned children. No doubt, he had written them letters and checked on their wellbeing, asked after their emotions and made sure they were well. No more. He’d grown numb to the pain his presence inflicted, and with it less sympathetic to the plight of those around him.

By the time he reached her door, by the time he said “Ma’am, we have received word that your brother’s plane was shot down over Occupied France last week. His body has been recovered from the wreckage and will be on route home at the earliest possible date,” to her, he didn’t mean the “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this news. Your brother died a hero, and if there is anything I can do to ease your pain, it would be my honor to do so in his memory,” that followed.

The nameless general had never met her brother. He called every soldier a hero when he met their families, whether it was true or not. If they asked him about how their loved one died, or if they began to cry on his shoulder, he had a practiced speech about how their son or brother or husband had died fighting, died bravely, died to save the lives of millions, died to protect them all.

(Y/n) knew all of that because, even though she didn’t remember his name, she remembered his face. They’d met before. It wasn’t the first time he’d knocked on her door. He was the same general who had come to inform her of her father’s tragic end a few months prior. The general hadn’t remembered her father’s name either, nor hers.

She didn’t bother to point out their association to the man. She thanked him for his service and left him standing on her front step as a door closed in his face.

It was easier for both of them that way.

The letter that came from her brother’s commanding officer was more heartfelt, (Y/n) assumed, but she didn’t read it.

_“Ms. (Y/n), By now you have no doubt received word of your brother’s tragic end. Selfishly, I am glad that I was not the one who had to inform you. Your brother was a flying ace in my squadron and a good friend. Retrieving his body brought me to tears for far longer than my commanding officers would like me to admit…”_

That was as far as she read. Her brother was dead. They had his body. She was numb to everything else, as numb as the general who showed up at her door, as numb as her brother’s corpse in the grave.

She couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, couldn’t speak.

* * *

(Y/n) walked into the hospital the next day and handed in her resignation. She was just the next in a long line.

Dorothy had resigned the week before. Her husband had been killed in North Africa. She could no longer afford to live in New York, not that cost of living was at the front of her mind. She was moving back South with her two children, both under 5 years old, to live with her aging parents.

Vera had gotten married to a hotshot factory owner and resigned to plan her wedding. The rest of the ward had scorned her as she trotted out with her chin held high and a smirk on her face. She’d never done the work because she loved it like the rest of them, and she had no qualms about letting them all know it.

Ruth was on her way out the door in a week. She was following her husband to England where he’d be training pilots at an RAF airfield. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn’t be allowed, wives being stationed with their husbands. Ruth, however, was a pretty good mechanic and often worked on her husbands planes in her free time, and without any children to worry about, the Army was really getting two for the price of one.

Juanita’s departure had no doubt hit the hardest. With so many men dying overseas, crime on the home front had been virtually forgotten. Juanita’s son brought it back to life. Too weak to be enlisted in the army, her son had taken up work at the docks that he never would’ve been physically qualified for if not for all the men being drafted. Three weeks on the job, he was mugged by a group of drunken sailors out for their last night of freedom. He died in the hospital with his mother only a few doors down in a different wing.

The most senior nurse on staff, Juanita used to run the ward, but after her son died in the building, she couldn’t even look at the hospital anymore.

“(Y/n),” Mary sighed and scrubbed the heel of her palm into her eyes to try to wipe away the sleep. “We’re short staffed already.”

There was a begging to her tone, and any other day the pain etched across her face would’ve been enough to convince (Y/n) to stay. Mary was her friend, by some accounts her best friend.

“I know Mary, and I’m sorry. I just can’t stay here anymore. I can’t walk past my brother’s room. I can’t ride down the streets my brother and I used to play in. I can’t go in the shop he used to own. I just can’t.”

Mary swallowed hard; when she spoke the lump in her throat became more apparent with each word. “I understand that you’re in pain, but this hospital…”

“That’s just it,” (Y/n) cut her off, slipping into the seat across the desk from her friend. She’d refused to sit when she first came to see Mary, hoping to be in and out quickly, but not now. “I don’t feel anything, Mary. I can’t look at his room because I know I should be heartbroken. I can’t travel down the street because I know I should be in pain. I can’t go in his shop because I know I should be crying. But I’m not. I don’t feel hurt or worried or upset. I don’t feel anything; I’m just numb.”

“Numb?” Mary furrowed her brow. “You’re leaving because you think you should be in more pain?”

“I’m leaving because I loved my brother, because I should be feeling something, but I’m not. I feel nothing, and that scares me even more.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know yet. Somewhere I will feel something.”

* * *

Her brother had been Air Force, but her father had been Army.

She couldn’t bring herself to go to one of the Air Force’s recruiting offices. Part of her was worried she would have an emotional breakdown speaking to the men in charge. A larger part of her was worried she would feel nothing at all, a sign she was heading in the wrong direction.

The Army felt safer. She hadn’t been numb to her father’s death. She’d cried and mourned, and though the thought still overwhelmed her with sadness, she knew she would one day move on. About her brother, (Y/n) didn’t know what to think.

“What experience do you have?”

(Y/n) found herself sat in front of some captain or another responsible for organizing the Army Nursing Corps. He looked bored with her; she doubted managing a bunch of women was what he’d had in mind when he joined the war.

“I’ve worked at Wyckoff Heights Hospital on St. Nicholas in Brooklyn for eight years. I have copies of all of my reviews that show exemplary performance and no reprimands on record.”

The man took the stack of papers from her hand and began flipping through them. He stared at each of them for a long time, occasionally giving a ‘hm’ or ‘huh’ to show that he was thinking.

(Y/n) noticed after two pages that he wasn’t actually reading. His eyes weren’t moving from where they looked thoughtfully at the center of the page, and the noises of contemplation came randomly, even on pages that wouldn’t require much consideration.

(Y/n) turned away from the show to glance around the room. To the left was a door to the waiting rooms. Occasionally, when it swung open she could see the rows of shirtless men waiting for their number to be called up for evaluation. There didn’t appear to be many seats open.

She wondered, to herself, how many of them would be accepted, how many of those would make it back alive.

There were family members milling around the hall. A young woman was already weeping near the exit, and she hadn’t even been rejoined by the man she was waiting for. One of the doctors, (Y/n) assumed the portly, greying man was not one of the recruits, was trying his best to comfort her, but he didn’t seem to be having much success.

For the overwhelming number of men waiting to be evaluated and find a place in this war, there were a surprisingly few number of nurses. (Y/n) hadn’t been shown to any waiting room. There was a bench in the half she’d first entered with half a dozen or so women occupying it when she arrived. By the time her name was finally called only two more had come in behind her. The recruiters desk was in a notch in the hallway, not even its own room. The women were forced to state their credentials and make their case with no privacy to his judgments.

At least a dozen of the people milling around, including the old man and young woman by the door, could hear what was being said to her.

The man snapped her file closed with sharp flip of his wrist. “On your application, you’ve marked that you’d like to be assigned to a field hospital. I’m assuming you know nothing about the war. Field Hospitals are on the frontlines, girl.”

“I’m aware.” (Y/n) smoothly replied.

He raised an eyebrow, but none of his other features changed. (Y/n) couldn’t tell if it was condescension or confusion. “Are you now? The nurses in Field Hospitals are shot at almost as much as the soldiers. You think the Germans will spare you because you have a pretty face?”

“I don’t expect to be spared by anyone.”

His grilling was catching eyes from those milling around.

“And why would a girl like you want to find herself on the front lines?”

“I just want this war to end with as little bloodshed as possible. Helping where the men need it most seems like a good start.”

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

German.

(Y/n)’s eyes whipped around, as did many others in the hallway. There was a German here.

“My name is Dr. Erskine,” He proclaimed, more quietly this time, “I may have a job for you.”

* * *

Erskine didn’t try to replace her father.

He offered a guiding hand out of the goodness of his heart. He offered a shoulder to cry on because he could see she hadn’t yet grieved. He offered insight, advice, from the wisdom of his own experience.

Erskine wasn’t trying to replace her father, and yet he did so many things she wished her father was there to do.

He offered her a job because he could see she wanted to find her purpose. He put her up in the barracks because he knew she needed space from her past. He accompanied her on walks at night to keep her nightmares at bay. He filled her waking hours with work when she needed distraction and took the load away when it became too much.

Erskine didn’t try to replace her father. No one could ever replace her father. He was a good substitute though. In times as dark as those, family was what she needed.

* * *

He reminded her of her brother.

That was the first thought that came to (Y/n)’s mind when she met Steve Rogers.

Her brother was younger than her by two years, and as a child he’d always been the smaller of the pair. For most of their childhood, her brother could barely reach her shoulder. Stretching his arms as wide as he could, he’d be lucky if his reach went from (Y/n)’s wrist to wrist. Short and scrawny, he’d not caught up to his sister’s size until he was a teen, but once he’d caught up, there was no looking back.

Steve reminded her of him. The size, for one thing, was an unmistakable similarity, but there was an air to Steve, an air of familiarity that made her feel at home. Every time she looked at him, she saw her baby brother. Not the strong, handsome man he was when he died, but the fearless, young boy she wished he would’ve stayed forever.

She monitored the health of all of Erskine’s candidates in the Strategic Scientific Reserve, but she couldn’t deny she paid special attention to Steve.

They all paid special attention to Steve.

Erskine liked his sense of justice. His conscience oozed out of his every pore. No one had ever argued with Steve and been right about it. They were talking about making a superhero here, and yet there was a very real sense amongst them that Steve already had a superpower: always doing the right thing.

Peggy had an immediate fondness for him. He was determined, beyond belief, and she admired that spark in him that refused to be snuffed out. He knew, in his heart, what he believed, and he was more than willing to die for it. Peggy was too.

Only the Colonel, Chester Phillips, doubted Erskine’s decision. He paid special attention to Steve, but he did so only as a foil. He liked to compare Steve to other men in the camp, men _he’d_ chosen for the project, rather than the one Erskine had brought on. “Brown is stronger,” or “Donalds is faster,” were common phrases in his office.

In truth, they were all stronger. They were all faster. On paper, any one of them would’ve made a better super soldier than Stever Rogers.

“That’s what Phillps does not understand,” Erskine told her one day while they worked in his lab. “It isn’t about what’s on paper. It’s about what’s in his heart.”

“So it’s going to be Steve?” (Y/n) asked.

Erskine nodded. “Do you agree?”

(Y/n) hesitated. She didn’t want to blindly agree with the accolade simply because he reminded her of her brother. She also didn’t want to naively dismiss it to save him the risk because he reminded her of her brother.

She knew Steve Rogers; she would like to think she knew him well. They were friends. Yet the more she got to know him the more she saw her brother in him. That chest cold that wouldn’t go away when her brother was eight, the fight he lost with a boy who’d made a lewd joke about her skirt, the way he’d adamantly stood up for their father’s memory as a soldier; their kind hearted mother teaching him to temper his words.

She knew Steve Rogers well, and the more she knew him the more she saw him as her brother. The more she saw him as her brother, the more she knew he had to do this. He needed to do this.

“I agree.”

* * *

“Steve, you may as well ask her out. If you’re going to spend this much time ogling her, she at least deserves dinner out of it.”

Steve’s face turned as red as the apple she was chewing, and (Y/n) couldn’t hold in her smirk.

“I-I wasn’t…” Steve glanced over his shoulder, checking that Peggy wasn’t within earshot of (Y/n)’s ribbing.

“It’s all right, Steve. I won’t tell her, but you really should.”

Steve shook his head, definitively turning his back to Peggy. “Please, my entire life girls like that have passed me by.”

(Y/n) rested a hand on Steve’ shoulder. “Your entire life girls who look like that have passed you by, but Peggy isn’t like those girls. If you don’t ask her out, you’ll never give her a chance to prove it.”

Steve chuckled and looked off into the sky. “My friend said something like that to me about this girl, Maria, not long before he left for the front.”

“And did you listen to him?”

“No,” Steve admitted. “He was the one the girls always passed me by for.”

“Well, did he ask them out?” (Y/n) chuckled.

Steve hesitated a second before saying, “Yes.”

“Then that’s why they passed you by. Your friend sounds like he has a good head on his shoulders. You should listen to him.”

Steve gave (Y/n) a fond smile. “You remind me a lot of him. It’s easier, having you here.”

“It’s easier having you here too.”

(Y/n) didn’t know if that was true, but she was starting to think it might be. She was starting to feel something. Steve was helping her remember the good times with her brother, before the Army and the War. Back when they were just two kids in Brooklyn.

She missed him.

* * *

Erskine. Gone.

Would this war take everyone from her?

(Y/n) kneeled in a pool of his blood, his body splayed out in front of her.

She’d dedicated years of her life to Erskine’s work. She’d dedicated time, money, opportunities. She’d dedicated everything she had and more. Gone.

His work was gone. Erskine was gone.

He was her friend, her family; and he was gone.

She summoned a tear, more than one.

They came slowly at first and then spiralled uncontrollably. Sobs racked her body as she gripped at his hand.

Someone tried to help her up, but she didn’t want up.

Vaguely, she recognized Stark’s voice. He was calling out to her.

“(Y/n), he’s gone.”

Yes, she already knew he was gone. What good was all of his genius when he could only state the obvious.

What good was all of her years in a hospital, all of her years of training, if she couldn’t save a life when it mattered, the one life that mattered.

It felt like hearing her father was gone again.

* * *

They were taking Steve too, as if she had anything left to give.

“Phillips would just as soon send me home. I’m just a lab rat to him.” Steve spat the word out in disgust. “That’s all I am, an experiment, Erskine’s experiment. They wanted an army, but they got me.”

“That’s all you are to him.” (Y/n) quietly corrected.

“And what am I to everyone else?” Steve turned on her, his eyes as red as hers were. “What am I to you?”

“His legacy,” she answered immediately.

She’d been thinking about it a lot. Erskine had been dead for two days, and all she’d been thinking about was him and Steve and the little family she’d made for herself at Lehigh. Erskine the father, Steve her brother, Peggy her sister, even Phillips, the grumpy uncle who didn’t want to be in the picture.

What did it all mean?

“You are his legacy. If you were any other soldier you’d be just another experiment, but you’re not. You’re Steve Rogers. Erskine chose you. You carry on his legacy; you carry on his work.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Steve asked in a desperate tone. He slumped onto the bench and let his head fall into his hands.

“I don’t know Steve,” (Y/n) sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s for you to figure out. You don’t have to know now. No one’s expecting you to know now, but when you do piece it together, I’ll be waiting.”

* * *

“Stark says you’re going to have your pick.”

Steve was lying on his back next to (Y/n), tossing a ball in the air and catching it repeatedly with a satisfying thunk as it hit his palm.

A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been able to catch it once. He had all of the coordination of a newborn foal and would’ve whacked himself, or her, in the face the first time he tried to throw it.

It reminded her, again, of her brother. After his growth spurt, when he finally caught up to her, passed her, when he got tall and filled out. The girls started to notice him; the guys started to respect him.

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Any Allied hospital in Europe…” Steve stopped tossing the ball and glanced over at her, “Know where you’re going to go?”

(Y/n) didn’t meet his gaze. She kept her eyes on a cloud floating by overhead. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” She confessed. “When I applied, when Erskine took me in, I was planning on going to the frontlines.”

“You don’t have to now.” Steve rolled onto his stomach and watched her expressions carefully. “You could go to the evacuation hospitals or England…”

“Would you?”

“What?”

“Would you go to the frontlines? If they let you?” (Y/n) asked. She already knew the answer, but she needed to ask.

“You know I would,” Steve admitted.

“Then that’s where I’ll go.” She’d joked, when Erskine was still alive, that Steve’s real superpower was always doing the right thing. If he’d go to the front, then that’s where she’d be, waiting for him to find his way.

(Y/n) met Steve’s eye finally. “You said your friend was in the 107th?”

* * *

It was only about a month before (Y/n) was running the field hospital attached to the 107th.

They sent mostly inexperienced girls out to the frontline. Supposedly, it was an easy job. They didn’t have time for complex treatment or procedures, so in theory, it was all triage and wound treatment. They claimed anyone with a little bit of training could handle it.

Early on when the fighting had just begun she imagined there might have been some truth to that claim, but as the war slogged on, it wasn’t so simple anymore. Every soldier had some kind of injury. The Army couldn’t afford to send everyone with more than a bump or bruise back from the frontline to an evacuation hospital. There wasn’t the time, manpower, money.

The field hospitals were overflowing with infected wounds, illness, bullet holes, broken bones, and there weren’t enough experienced nurses to go around. Not only did they lack the know-how, many of the inexperienced nurses were just young woman, some girls even, who didn’t properly know what they’d signed up for. They were shaken by the crack of every bullet, the boom of every grenade, the scream of every dying man.

(Y/n) had a sneaking suspicion that the real reason the Nurses Corps didn’t send out any of their trained nurses was that they want to risk their better nurses dying on the frontlines.

(Y/n) had watched a stray bullet tear through the chest of a young girl named Lydia only a week into her time with the 107th. She’d been reliably told by another nurse that Lydia was the fifth to die so far that year.

The second most experienced girl in (Y/n)’s unit had been a midwife for a few years before she shipped out, not exactly a skill that was necessary in an army full of men, but it came with some transferable knowledge. Her name was Maria, and it only took a few weeks before she was happily handing over the reins.

“They’re bringing in a batch of men from the front,” Maria reported to (Y/n). “Nothing serious, a couple broken bones. They took a fall to avoid a grenade; I’m told.”

(Y/n) motioned for Beverly and Viola at the other end of the tent. “We need to clean down some beds.” (Y/n) turned to Maria, “Did they say how many?”

“Not exactly, but I think it was only a few.”

(Y/n) only had a few beds to spare anyhow. There were a dozen cots set up in the field hospital, and six of them were currently occupied by men waiting for transport to the nearest evacuation hospital back West, another two by men with leg fractures. When she’d arrived, the beds were first come first serve, but (Y/n) had quickly started a process of dismissing anyone who could walk back to their own tents to come in to the hospital for regular checks on whatever ailed them.

“They’ve already reached camp; they’ll be here any moment.”

“If the bones aren’t through skin, then I don’t want them hanging around here. We’ll set them and send them on their way. We haven’t had free beds in a week, and I don’t want to take them up with something trivial.”

“Trivial? Glad to know you care about my leg, nurse.”

The tent flap was being held open by two soldiers, a sergeant and a private, around the girth of a much larger man propped up between them.

(Y/n) ignored the jab, “Get him on the bed.”

The two men helped their friend onto the nearest cot, and (Y/n), Beverly, and Maria quickly descended on him.

(Y/n) was the most experienced one there, but she’d made a point of having Beverly watch every bone she set. When things got busy, she might be needed elsewhere, and it was good to know that Beverly knew her way around things well enough to take a few bones off her plate.

“What happened?”

“Bit of an ambush, ma’am.” She recognized Gabe Jones immediately. She’d treated a broken finger of his on the first day she’d got here, followed by a number of bumps and bruises that probably wouldn’t have required her attention if Gabe weren’t such a flirt. “We had to jump into a ravine. Sergeant, here, did a number on his knee, and I got grazed by a bullet.”

“Maria, will you clean Private Jones’ wound?” (Y/n) began inspected the Sergeant’s knee.

“Of course,” Maria motioned Jones away to another open bed.

The third man took a step back towards the tent flap, but before he could get more than a few paces, he crumbled.

“Barnes!” The sergeant in the bed bolted upright. Beverly held him still, as (Y/n) rushed to his side.

“Are you alright, Sergeant?” (Y/n) slipped her arm around the man’s back and helped him stumble back to the nearest bed.

“I guess I’m not,” The man winced as he slumped back against the metal bed frame. “My side is killing me.”

(Y/n) nodded at the other sergeant, “Relocate his knee, while I do this, Bev. Maria can help when she’s done cleaning Jones’s wound.”

With deft fingers, (Y/n) unhooked the buttons down his uniform to check his complaint.

“I’d normally take you to dinner first, Doll.” These men hadn’t seen a woman in a long time, and usually they acted like it. She’d heard every bad joke in the book from the soldiers around camp and a couple from Jones in the bed next to them, but his tone was far more lighthearted, less learing than the others. He was teasing, trying to lighten the mood of how much pain was written across his face.

“Well, the rations around here aren’t very appealing, so you’ll have to settle for…” She found what she was looking for. A bruise spanning his entire right side. “You carried him back like this?” Her fingers probed gently at the edges of the dark blue stain.

“Someone had to; not like Dugan carries his own weight around here.” He winced as she touched a particularly sensitive spot.

“Broken ribs,” (Y/n) told the other girls over her shoulder, “three from the looks of it. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“That’s alright, Doll. I’ll just get to see more of your smiling face.”

(Y/n) wasn’t smiling. She hadn’t smiled in quite a while.

* * *

“You’re healing well,” (Y/n) observed Barnes’s side, peeking out of the sheets, a few days later. “Right on schedule. You won’t need to be on the next train to the evacuation hospital.”

“Of course not,” Barnes scoffed, “How could I ever leave your lovely company?”

(Y/n) cocked an eyebrow. “That work on the girls back home?”

“Depends on the girl really,” Barnes confessed. “Most of the time a smile and a dance does the trick, but I like the ones that make me work for it.”

(Y/n) rolled her eyes and went back to inventorying the supplies she’d spread out on the cot next to his.

“Where is home for you, (Y/n)?”

It was the first time he’d called her by her name, also the first time he’d asked her a genuine question. “Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn!” He exclaimed, “I knew there was a reason I liked you. I’m from Brooklyn myself.”

“Really?” She glanced back at him, pausing cataloging the rolls of gauze. She had to remember to put in for that. They desperately needed more gauze.

“Born and raised,” With a wince, he adjusted pushed himself higher in the bed. “My whole family and my best friend still live there. I’ll go back there too, if I make it out of your care in one piece.”

(Y/n) snorted; she couldn’t help it. Her care? They were in a war, and he wanted to joke that he wouldn’t make it out of her hospital. “I’ll have you know my care is perfectly fine. I served 8 years in ambulatory at Wyckoff.”

Barnes’s brow furrowed. “Can’t say I’ve ever been to Wyckoff, but I was a frequent guest at Beth Moses Hospital.”

“You break ribs running from Nazis often in New York?” She jabbed.

“No, but my friend may as well have. He picked a lot of fights. Didn’t win many, but that never stopped Steve.”

(Y/n)’s head jerked around and she dropped the papers in her hands. “Steve? Steve Rogers?”

“Yeah,” Barnes had her attention now, and she had his, “you know him?”

* * *

“I swear, Bucky, next time you come in here you better be losing an arm. You’re wasting my time with these little scrapes.”

Bucky rose to his feet in front of her.

She came face to chest with his shirtless torso, and her ego absolutely refused to allow her to turn her head away or take a step back. Even as she felt her cheeks coloring from his state of undress, she adamantly met his smirking eyes.

“It’s okay to admit you’d miss me, Doll. Around here, I’m like a little slice of home, a breath of fresh air, a…”

“The smell of maneur wafting out of the stables,” She cut off.

Bucky chuckled and began buttoning back his uniform. “One day, Doll, one day.”

Bucky always said things like that. ‘One day, when we’re both back in Brooklyn’, ‘When I finally get the chance to take you dancing’, ‘Me, you, Steve, and a friend’.

(Y/n) never took any of it to heart. Bucky had popped in and out of the medical tent on many occasions since he’d broken his ribs, and he flirted with all of the girls who treated him. She never let it get to her heart, and she tried not to let it go to her head that his flirtations were infinitely more personal with her. He’d teasingly compliment the other girls’ uniforms, make observations about how nice they looked that day, wink suggestively as he ducked out of the tent. She was the only one he made plans for: Brooklyn, Steve, Coney Island, dinner, dancing.

The thought was nice, but she left it all there, just a thought.

“Don’t be a stranger, Doll,” Bucky called as he made his way to the door. “I’m sick of faking injury just to see you.”

He gave her his signature wink before he turned and left the tent.

* * *

The SSR had moved in. She saw Phillips riding in from a mile away.

She stood side by side with the commanding officers; everyone over the rank of Sergeant filled in a pseudo welcome party for the reinforcements as they rode in.

None of the men could figure out why she was there, at the front, out ranking them. She wasn’t even properly in the Army. She was just a nurse, a field medic, nothing more or less.(Y/n) couldn’t say she was expecting any sort of comraderie from the Colonel. She’d expected a firm handshake, an acknowledgement of their acquaintance, and a swift dismissal back to her duties.

When Colonel Phillips jumped out, the men behind her became painfully aware of who she was, and she became painfully aware how things had changed.

“(Y/n),” Phillips ignored the officers in charge and marched straight for her. “Good, you’re here. I need someone with a head on their shoulders.” He clapped her on the back and led her towards the truck.

From the back, they came filing out, the men she and Erskine had rejected for the supersoldier program. Each of them a hand picked reminder of her lost companion. All of them could’ve been the poster boy for a ‘join the army’ campaign if things had gone a different way.

She had to remind herself that these men were Phillips choosing, that, even if Erskine lived, none of them would have ever been Steve. These were good soldiers, but that didn’t make them good men. There may well have been a few good ones in the bunch, but being strong, being able, didn’t make them so. She preferred the men behind her, the 107th.

“There’s someone else I know you’ll be happy to see.”

It took a moment more of men filing out of the truck bed before Phillips’ surprise came to face her. She felt her heart building up hope, anticipation, excitement.

Peggy. It was Peggy.

She hid her disappointment well as she smiled and hugged the Englishwoman.

She loved Peggy, but she was no Steve.

Where was Steve? It had been so long since she heard news. She was worried.

* * *

“So you’re a hotshot then?”

Bucky had swaggered up to her the moment she stepped outside of the hospital tent.

“You must be if you have the Colonel’s ear. Everyone’s been talking about it. My little Brooklyn in league with the bigwigs.”

“Your?” (Y/n) chose to ignore the rest of the sentence. She stopped midstep and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t think you’ll find me ‘your’ anything, let alone all of Brooklyn.”

Bucky smiled mischievously and matched her stance. “Of course you’re not mine, but who do you think’s been keeping the rest of these scoundrels off your back?”

“Oh?” Her lips quirked up instictively in response to his smile. She really couldn’t help it. Steve had told her once that Bucky had that affect on women, that they couldn’t help themselves arounf him. “You’re protecting me from the wandering eyes of your fellow soldiers in hopes that someone will kindly cave into your flirtations.”

“No,” Bucky drawled, taking a step closer. “I’m protecting all of our dear nurses from the wandering eyes of my fellow soldiers because you have more important things to do like treat the broken ribs of a cocky sniper trying desperately to keep from crying like a child in front of his men.”

“Well your service is greatly appreciated.” (Y/n) chuckled, turning back to her walk, “If you must know, I’m not a bigwig at all.”

“Really?” Bucky fell into step by her side. “Didn’t look that way to me.”

“My mentor was a bigwig,” She confessed, her smile turning stale on her lips, “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

Bucky looped his arm through hers and dragged her to a stop, rounding her to face him. “That can’t be true.”

“It is.”

“If your mentor was that important, then you must’ve been pretty great to catch their eye.” Bucky gave her an encouraging smile.

She saw it in his eyes then. She hadn’t seen it before, not even when he was making her laugh with his flirting. She could see the kind heart, the trusting nature, all the things she admired about Steve. They were there, just buried deep beneath a layer of bravado and natural charisma.

She finally understood why Steve would be his friend.

“Have you heard of the Strategic Scientific Reserve?” The question slipped her mouth before she could stop it.

“No,” Bucky’s expression furrowed. “Why?”

It was top secret. She really shouldn’t be mentioning it. She’d already lied to him about how she knew Steve. She should just lie about the SSR, forget she said anything. She should…

She didn’t. “It’s a program my mentor and I founded…”

She told him everything. Everything about the SSR, about Steve, about Peggy, about Phillips, about Erskine.

He led her off to the edge of camp, away from stray ears and wandering eyes. He sat with her under a tree.

She told him about signing up for the war, about the general who delivered the news about her brother and before that her father. She told him about her mother leaving. She told him about her childhood.

She couldn’t help it. Once she started, she just couldn’t stop.

She understood why Steve would be his friend. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d inadvertently trusted him with everything.

* * *

“(Y/n),” Maria came running through the tent flap, not even bothering to push it aside as it draped her shoulder. “Come quick. It’s Bucky.”

(Y/n) was in the middle of handing out rations. She dropped the box on the cot in front of her and bolted for the door.

* * *

“What happened?”

She found Peggy first.

“The regiment was ambushed by Schmidt.” Peggy liked to talk as she walked. In that moment, (Y/n) appreciated that about her. “Only a third of them made it back. We’re doing rolls now, but the men in the yard are all that’s left.”

(Y/n) burst into the square field that functioned as the town center of camp.

There were men, dusty, beaten, bloodied men everywhere. Her small staff of nurses would be overwhelmed by the numbers, but that wasn’t what was on her mind now.

“Where is he?” She left the question and Peggy in her wake, running through the clusters of soldiers. Some supported their injured friends, others laid groaning side by side, a few stood in the center, completely fine. They looked the most lost of them all, as if they were asking God why he had chosen to spare them.

Hodge was there, in the center, one of the men surveying the damage around him. He was fine, completely fine.

“Hodge,” She marched up to him with a fury, “Where is Barnes?”

“Barnes? That kid that’s always following you around?”

Hodge had come in with the other Super Soldier Candidates. He hadn’t had the time to learn everyone’s names, not that he ever would have anyway. He was Hodge; Hodge thought he was too good for that sort of thing.

“Where is he?” She demanded again, not intending to repeat herself a third time.

“He was in the flank with his buddies. They’re gone. All of them, gone.”

Hodge had the decency to look sorry that he was giving her the news.

(Y/n) imagined it was the first decent thing he’d done in his life.

* * *

Was she cursed?

She felt like she was. She felt like a ghost walking through life, doomed to haunt everyone she touched.

Her mother left her. Her father was dead. Her brother followed not long after. Erskine died just as she’d come to think of him as family. Steve was forced to tour around the country like some kind of sideshow because of what she’d helped do to him. Lydia was dead almost as soon as (Y/n) arrived. Now, Bucky.

She hadn’t confided in anyone in a long time until she met Bucky. She’d chatted with Lydia, Maria, her fellow nurses, made nice with them. She’d only told Peggy things she was sure the woman had already read in her file; she told Phillips even less. She told Steve bits and pieces, but she tried not to burden his plate more than it already was. She hadn’t needed to tell Erskine anything; the old man could read it for himself in her eyes.

She’d told it all to Bucky.

Whether it was the heat of war, the charm that came to him so effortlessly, that kind smile or those trustworthy eyes, it didn’t matter. She’d told him everything there was to tell, and as quickly as he knew he was gone.

Caring about her. It felt like the kiss of death.

She was a nurse, and her father bled to death on the battlefield. She was a nurse, and her brother died of injuries from a plane crash. She was a nurse, and Erskine died of a gunshot in her arms. She was a nurse. She was supposed to save people; she hadn’t saved them. And now, she couldn’t save Bucky either.

* * *

Steve. She knew those eyes anywhere. Even behind that stupid mask, she knew it was Steve.

She watched the show with blank eyes and a blanker expression. Steve didn’t look much better.

Back in Brooklyn, (Y/n) had been rather a catch. Boys had taken her out many times, and often times, when they wanted to seem smarter and more cultured than they actually were, they would take her to a show. (Y/n) had watched more plays than she could count, and none of them had been nearly as bad as this.

Steve couldn’t fake excitement if he tried, and he was clearly trying.

(Y/n) didn’t care about the show though, bad acting or not. She cared about Steve, and she cared about what he could do.

“Steve,” She barged into the dressing rooms backstage.

The girls, the dancers, squealed and made to hide or cover themselves, but they quickly regained composure when they saw it was another girl.

“Steve!”

Steve looked up from where he was sat in a corner doodling.

“(Y/n)?” He dropped the paper aside and got to his feet, hesitantly, disbelieving that it could really be her.

“Steve,” (Y/n) threw herself at him, hugging him close. “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

He held her close. “Sorry? What for?”

“Steve, you have to help,” She pulled back and looked him dead in the eye. “It’s Bucky.”

* * *

(Y/n) didn’t join them on the plane. How could she? Every time one buzzed overhead her brother came rushing back to mind.

She still hadn’t buried him; his body was waiting for her back at home. She was going to bury him beside her father, beside an empty plot she’d reserved for herself, just in case something happened on the front.

She wondered, to herself because Bucky was not there to wonder out loud to like last time, if she couldn’t mourn because he had not been laid to rest. She wondered if she needed the confirmation of seeing his body for herself or the resignation of a coffin and a deep grave.

That hadn’t been true of her father. She’d mourned him the moment the general knocked on her door; she’d wept for losing him. Perhaps, she’d been able to weep because she had more to lose. Perhaps, she wept for her father because with her brother alive she still had a reason to feel. Perhaps, she wept for Erskine because, by the time he left her, she’d found other reasons, a new family.

She wondered if she would ever cry for her brother the way she had her father or Erskine. She wondered, if she started crying for him, if she would ever stop.

Maybe she was just full of it.

* * *

“He should’ve radioed by now.”

She was in the hospital tent, pacing nervously in front of the only cot void of soldiers. Peggy and Maria had sat cross-legged on the flimsy mattress and were watching her with anxious expressions.

Howard Stark stood angrily tapping his foot near the bit of canvas at the head of the bed.

He was the only one who seemed to share (Y/n)’s nerves.

How Peggy was holding it together, (Y/n) had no idea. It wasn’t like she didn’t care. A blind man could see how much she cared about Steve. She had a composure to her though.

(Y/n) envied her that; she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. She wished she were as composed.

“That’s no guarantee that anything happened,” Maria’s voice was a calm guiding hand in the storm. She cared about the missing men, about Steve, but no more than every other soldier. She cared deeply for everyone under her care; it was part of her nature. Their absence didn’t sway her.

“No guarantee,” (Y/n) conceded,”but one hell of a coincidence.”

“Well what can we do?” Howard asked. “Ride into Occupied territory and offer our assistance?”

(Y/n) haulted midstep and looked up at Howard.

“No!” He immediately shot out.

“Yes.”

* * *

She packed a bag of all the essentials: bandages, needle and thread, alcohol, small bottles of antibiotics and medicines she could sneak out of the tent.

The bag was heavy, bulky, but it would fit snugly on the back of one of the motorcycles that that night’s messenger had left near the edge of camp.

He wasn’t scheduled to make his next delivery run for three days. She had every intention of being back by then. Either she’d be back or dead.

With all hope, and a little help from Maria, she’d be entirely unnoticed until she rode back into camp. Maria had managed well enough on her own before (Y/n) got there. She could handle a few days.

“Do you even know how to ride one of those things?”

(Y/n) froze. She knew the voice, but she didn’t turn. If she didn’t turn, maybe she could pretend he wasn’t there.

Phillips stepped up to her side. “Is this what Erskine would want for you? A suicide mission?”

“It’s not a suicide mission. What Steve did, that was a suicide mission. I’m just trying to help the odds.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“He’s trying to free hundreds of your men from a Hydra base where they’re being held prisoner. At best, he succeeded, and they’re headed back this way.”

“Unlikely,” Phillips butted in.

“At worst, he failed.” She continued without acknowledging his interruption. “There are a lot of scenarios in between worst and best that involve your men out there, injured and dying.”

“And you think one nurse is going to help?”

“I’m not going to hurt!”

Phillips snorted, “Is this about that boy?”

“What boy?” (Y/n) turned back to securing her bag to the motorcycle. It was a tell. Phillips wasn’t stupid. He knew that. She knew that.

“The one Rogers is friends with. The one you sent him on this fool’s errand after. I thought it was just because they were friends, but the men told me you two were close.”

(Y/n)’s hands clenched around the strap of her bag.

“Is that why you want to go? You’re chasing after some lowly soldier.”

“I want to help!” (Y/n) spat, turning on Phillips with a vengeance. “Who cares if it’s because I’m feeling guilty or because I care about him! They are my friends, and I want to help them.”

Phillips watched with a cool, calculating eye for a long moment as (Y/n)’s chest heaved with anger. She looked as angry as he’d ever seen her, and he’d seen her angry many times at Lehigh.

She cared about Steve. There was no denying that, but whoever this sergeant was he was something else, something special.

Reluctantly, he sighed out in defeat. “Your bag’s going to go flying off the back if you tie it down like that.” He turned and started knotting the ropes for her.

* * *

She was seven miles out when she heard it. Something big and loud and powerful barrelling down on her.

(Y/n) stopped her motorcycle in the street and went silent, listening.

Tanks.

She rolled the bike off the road, muscling it behind some trees. It was clunky, weighty, and she didn’t have the strength to get it properly hidden back in the woods. Still, she found a patch of dirt flat enough to roll the bike off the road and made due with laying it on its side behind a bush.

Whoever it was was coming closer. She found the thickest tree there was and stood straight and tall behind it, sucking herself in to be as narrow a target as possible.

She could hear shouting now, though she couldn’t make out the voices. There was a melody to their tone even though the words were indistinct. They were singing something.

It went on for a verse or two, judging by the pauses, before whoever they were were finally close enough to make out words.

English words. American accents.

“The Star Spangled Man! With a plan!” Horribly out of tune male voices echoed through the tree tops without a care in the world for who heard.

“Steve!” (Y/n) rushed out of the trees.

They were at the end of the road, making their way around a bend a few hundred yards ahead, but she’d recognize that God awful costume from a mile away. It stood out plain as day against the swath of brown and green forest and the drab, colorless look of the men at his side.

“Steve!” (Y/n) raced for him.

Steve realized who it was almost instantly. “(Y/n)!” He jogged forward and met her halfway.

“I thought you were dead!” She choked out.

“Come on, little Brooklyn, you have to know we’re made of tougher stuff than that.”

(Y/n) pulled away, positively beaming to hear that drawl of her nickname. “Bucky!”

Bucky tipped a nonexistent cap her direction. “At your service, Doll.”

He dropped the hat charade just in time to catch her as she flung her arms around his neck.

“One day, Doll,” He mumbled into her ear.

* * *

Frenchie was in the bottom of the tank with a seriously mangled stint strapped to his arm.

“I did the best I could,” Bucky was hunched over (Y/n) as she treated his fallen companion. “I’ve watched you enough times, you think I’d have it down by now.”

“Maybe if you were actually watching her hands you would have,” Jones jabbed an elbow into Barnes ribs.

“Hey now,” Barnes chuckled. “I watched her hands.”

“Sure you did.” (Y/n) bit back a grin. “The stint isn’t pretty, but neither is the break. This will take a while to heal.”

Jones prattled off in French, alarming (Y/n) to no end.

Bucky knelt down next to her and explained. “Frenchie doesn’t speak English. We make Jones translate to earn his keep. Only way he’s been useful so far.”

“Oh,” (Y/n) went back to the arm in question.

“I promise I was watching your hands,” He murmured to her with his usual heart-stopping smile.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes, “And I promise you were too busy flirting with my staff to notice what my hands were doing.”

“Not your staff, just you.” He corrected her. They both knew that wasn’t technically true. Bucky Barnes was nothing if not a flirt. That didn’t mean he meant it though. They both knew he meant it with her, and they both knew he didn’t mean it with anyone else.

* * *

“Rogers, I’ve been with these guys on the field for months,” Bucky smacked him on the shoulder and pointed to the table in questions. “They’re all utter morons. Of course they’ll say yes.”

Steve gave his friend a worried look but let Bucky’s smile reassure with enough to take the next step. “Wish my luck,” he patted his friend on the back and marched over to the group of men getting drunker by the moment.

Bucky chuckled to himself and circled around to the far side of the bar to order himself a drink and find a quieter table. He wanted a beer, and he wanted as much distance between himself and that piano as possible. It was giving him such a headache. The beer would help with that.

He wasn’t actually sure that was true. He wasn’t a doctor or a nurse to know, but he was going to tell himself it would. Mostly he just wanted the beer. He’d earned it after the last couple months he’d had, after the last year honestly.

He heard the booming voice of Sergeant Dugan over everything else in the bar and couldn’t help a chuckle. They’d all earned a round.

They’d earn a couple more if they said yes, and as Bucky watched them from over the rim of his glass, he knew they would. They were fighters, like Steve, and like Steve, they wouldn’t back down from that.

Bucky kept his eyes on the men as they all considered Steve’s offer. He could tell the moment the words left Steve’s mouth, the moment they all froze at the proposition. He could tell, one by one, as they all agreed, like he knew they would.

It was written on their faces. It was written on Steve’s face.

He tried not to sound too cocky when Steve came back around to him. “See, told you; they’re all idiots.”

“How ‘bout you?” Steve took up the chair next to Bucky.

Bucky didn’t meet his eye. He knew the question was coming, and he already had his answer.

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

“Hell no,” Bucky sighed with a smile. “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I’m following him.”

Steve smiled, relief washing over his features as he took the drink in front of him.

“You’re keeping the outfit right?” Bucky couldn’t help but tease.

“You know what,” Steve looked back at the poster, “It’s kinda growing on me.”

* * *

The singing at the front of the room fell quiet, to almost a murmur.

Bucky and Steve turned to the door, to the woman in the vivid red dress.

“Captain,” she greeted with a formal note to her voice.

She was beautiful. Bucky would’ve been blind not to see it, especially in that shade of red. She looked like one of the girls Bucky used to go dancing with, tight dress hugging her curves, matching lipstick and perfectly styled hair. She was a woman on a mission, and he had a sneaking suspicion that mission was a man, specifically a man named Steve Rogers.

Bucky’s eyes wandered over assessingly. She was way out of Steve’s league, or at least the league he used to be in. He hadn’t been out with Steve since this new transformation; he had no idea what Steve’s league even was anymore. He was taller, stronger; he was famous apparently. But he was still an absolute dork, clueless around women.

It was written all over his darting, nervous eyes.

“I see your top squad is prepping for duty,” she observed.

“You don’t like music?” Bucky smiled.

“I might even, when this is all over, go dancing.” Peggy didn’t bother to look in Bucky’s direction for even a moment.

“Then what are we waiting for?” He asked her.

“The right partner,” Her tone was suggestive; her eyes watching Steve expectantly. For the first time in his life, Bucky wasn’t in on the joke.

“0800 Captain,” She said as she whisked herself away.

“I’m invisible,” Bucky turned back to Steve, “I’m turning into you,” he scoffed, “this is a horrible dream.”

Steve smirked as he turned to walk off, “Don’t take it so hard. I hear she has a friend.” Steve motioned over Bucky’s shoulder towards the doorway Peggy had just left.

Steve took up his old seat as Bucky turned away.

* * *

What had possessed her to come here, (Y/n) couldn’t be sure.

She knew what she’d told herself. That Captain America was assembling a team of his own, that his team was leaving for deployment, that she wanted to be on the ship when it did.

She could’ve asked him all of that before he left for the bar, or when he came back. It’s not like he’d be drunk; she knew that couldn’t happen.

Hell, she could’ve asked him the next morning. Steve would’ve made it happen.

But when Peggy told her she was going down to the bar to check on the men, something had possessed her to follow.

Maybe she wanted a drink. Maybe she too wanted to check on the boys. More likely, it was how clearly Peggy’s excuse was a rouse to get dolled up and see Steve, and there (Y/n) was, right by her side getting dolled up too.

Jones had cornered her the moment she’d walked in. Gabe kissed the back of her hand like an old-school gentleman and asked her to dance. She politely declined.

“That’s all right,” Gabe smiled knowingly and pointed in the direction of the room Peggy was leaving. “Sergeant’s right in there.”

(Y/n) followed, anxiously, in Peggy’s retreating footsteps with only an encouraging nod from her friend to bolster her courage.

She’d chosen the purple dress, a more understated shade than Peggy’s red but a far more modern cut. She wasn’t there to grab the attention of the entire bar like Peggy was, but she hoped at least to keep one pair of eyes on her.

Steve spotted her first and immediately smiled. He waved a hand in her direction and retreated back to the tables.

Bucky’s back was to her, but whatever Steve said made him turn.

His face went slack, and a little space opened between his lips, as if his mind had formed words his tongue couldn’t speak.

“Well, now I know what Peggy meant,” He mumbled as she approached him.

“About what?”

“The Right Partner.” Bucky offered her his arm, “Would you like to dance?”

“I’m not very good,” she confessed smoothly.

Bucky smiled. Not his usual cocky grin that swept girls off their feet, or the warm, reassuring smile she’d come to trust. It was gentle, somewhere between kind and loving. “I’ll teach you.”


End file.
